


Space and Time

by TheSigyn



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-18
Updated: 2011-10-18
Packaged: 2018-04-15 13:14:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4608117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSigyn/pseuds/TheSigyn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor sent Amy and Rory back to Earth, and traveled off, alone in the Tardis. Alone. So alone. So empty and so silent. Too much space. Too much time. He missed them, missed them more than he wanted to think about. Who in the universe could take that feeling away? Five chapters.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Doctor

**Author's Note:**

> This is long, drawn out, sexy romance. I don’t pretend it to be anything else. I’m playing. The title PWP is a little misleading – it’s not particularly graphic, but the plot is inherently sexual, and I don’t pull punches for it, so I figured I’d just make sure people knew it was coming.

  
“You had better be the Doctor, or you are seriously going to need one.”   
  
“Hello, Sweetie,” he whispered in her ear.   
  
River Song relaxed with a sleepy chuckle and let whatever it was that had been in her hand — a knife? A gun? A poisoned janus thorn? The Doctor couldn’t see it very well in the dark — sneak back under her pillow. She snuggled backwards against the Doctor, who had crept under the covers behind her as she slept. “Mm,” she hummed. “What are you doing here?” she asked into the darkness as he wrapped his arm around her chest, holding her close.   
  
“I needed you,” the Doctor murmured.   
  
“Hm, good,” River mumbled. “Just give me five minutes to wake up properly, snatch up a gun, and I’ll be right with you.”   
  
“No,” the Doctor whispered. “ _I_ needed you.”   
  
River went still in his arms and then shifted in her prison bed until she was facing him. “What’s wrong?”  
  
He wished she hadn’t asked that. Of course, he’d been hoping she’d ask that — it was why he had come. But at the same time, he realized as she asked that he couldn’t answer. The words weren’t there. The feeling was too strong for words, and all he wanted to do was hold her — just hold her, breathe in her scent, know she existed, absorb everything about her that was herself and her parents and all the time he’d shared with all three of them. He needed her. He lay there with his eyes closed for long moments until River’s hand came up and smoothed the tense sorrow from his brow. “What is it, sweetie. What’s happened?”   
  
He shook his head.   
  
“When are you?” River asked.   
  
All he did was draw in another breath, heady with the scent of River Song.  
  
“Please, honey.” She was sounding quietly desperate, now. He supposed he was being terrifyingly enigmatic. He couldn’t explain that there was nothing wrong — that it was only that he had just realized everything was wrong. His entire life. He’d lost his distraction, he was facing reality, and everything was wrong, because for once, there was nothing wrong at all. He had behaved himself, been the grown up for once, done the right thing — and it hurt like hell! “Please, I have to know when you are. I have to know what’s allowed.”   
  
The Doctor kissed her, admittedly more to stop her questions than because he wanted a kiss. It felt good, though. Better than he’d expected, and he let it linger for a moment. It was a moment of a good feeling in the midst of all this emptiness... yes. It was a start.   
  
“All right,” River said after he was finished. “Clearly past that, then.”   
  
It was so curt and obvious that the Doctor chuckled. It sounded like a sob.   
  
“Oh, honey!” River cried in concern. She kissed his cheek and ran her fingers through his hair. She pressed his head down into the pillow and covered his face with little kisses. He sighed as the acceptance and devotion in the movements shaved off another layer of the hurt. But there were so many layers right now.   
  
River only indulged this for a moment, though, before she pulled away and stared down at him. “I really need to know,” she said earnestly. “You have no idea. It’s important. Please tell me when you are.”   
  
The Doctor said nothing.  
  
“Anything,” River insisted. “Just one little word, tell me what just happened to you, and I’ll work it out from there.” She had such faith that she’d be able to extrapolate his history. How much did she know? More than he did, he was certain of that. “Please, my darling,” she whispered. “Just one word.”   
  
“Minotaur.” His voice was hoarse, and it nearly cracked.   
  
River’s tense face cleared, and then softened. “Oh, honey!” It sounded both sympathetic and amused, now. She kissed him tenderly and ran her nails along his scalp. “You poor, darling man!” she breathed, and now there was a smile in her words. She kissed him twice more, and then ran her lips along his jaw. “Amy told me a long time ago, but I didn’t know it was this hard on you.” She nibbled his ear. “You know it made me love you more? Even then.”   
  
The Doctor closed his eyes. “It was just... they’re gone, and the silence... the quiet, I mean. I...”   
  
“No, call it what it is. Silence is always the enemy. I’m glad you came to me,” River whispered.   
  
So was he. She helped. The Doctor’s hand reached up under her prison pajamas and wrapped around her bare back. The heat of her skin felt so damned good he let his other hand follow, and grabbed hold of her soft, smooth human breast. River pulled away a little with an eyebrow raised. “My, aren’t you acting forward. Isn’t this a little early for you?”   
  
“I don’t _care_ ,” the Doctor growled.  
  
River lay still for a long moment, regarding him. He could tell she was checking to see if he was serious. To his own surprise, he found that he was. River was hard to read. He couldn’t figure out if she looked happy or not, but there was such tenderness in her gaze — tenderness which he doubted anyone else in the universe ever got to see. She caressed his cheek softly with her fingertips, and then nodded, very slightly. “Okay, honey. But not here.”   
  
The Doctor sighed, half relieved and half terrified. He did not make love often. He didn’t actually know ‘when’ River was, either, and he didn’t know how much he’d have to explain to her about his physiology. Was it worth it? He flickered back and forth, telling himself it wasn’t too late to back out. But the idea of walking back into that empty Tardis, no Amy, no Rory, all alone, alone, alone.... Yes. He needed River Song.   
  
“Where’s the Tardis?”   
  
He gestured with his chin, and River looked away from the bed for the first time. It sat conspicuously in the middle of her cell. “I’m surprised I didn’t hear it.”   
  
“She came in silently.”  
  
“Finally left the breaks off, did you?”   
  
“I think she did,” the Doctor admitted.  
  
River shrugged. “Well, she knows I hate them.” She pecked the Doctor on the lips and stood up, pulling him by the hand. Now she definitely did look happy.  
  
The Doctor was surprisingly shaky as he followed her into the Tardis. River directed him to the console. “Set us drifting in a nice eddy, and I’ll be right with you,” she said.  
  
Terror gripped him and he turned to her. “River...!”   
  
River smiled at him gently. “You can still change your mind, sweetie,” she told him. “Any time.”   
  
He blushed and looked back to the console. He was glad he couldn’t see her expression as she disappeared. He suspected it would be patronizing and amused, and he wasn’t sure he could take it. He’d been looking forward to this — aren’t we...? — but it still meant a future he still partly wanted to run from. He touched a control — he wasn’t even sure what it did — and the Tardis went somewhere. He spent a good four minutes trying to figure out what he’d done. By the time he started pulling yards of glowing fairy lights out of a panel beneath the console, he heard River laugh behind him.   
  
“If you’d rather play with the Tardis, I can go home again,” she said with a chuckle.   
  
The Doctor whirled and found himself facing River Song. She stood in a doorway off the console room that he hadn’t previously been aware existed. She had changed out of her standard issue prison pajamas, and not — as he’d been half afraid — into a sexy human negligee (or, even worse, nothing at all,) but into a sedate yet seductive dress which looked fairly Roman in origin. She looked like she had at the Pandorica, only without any wigs or makeup. She looked like Cleopatra.   
  
He stared at her for long, long moments, transfixed by her, before she smiled and blew him a kiss. Then she turned away, leaving him alone in the console room, staring at that open door. She was giving him a choice.  
  
He deliberated for what seemed to him a long time before he realized he was already peeking around the door frame. His curiosity was stronger than his trepidation. The room was large, smaller than the console room, but easily the size of a New York apartment. The decor was an eclectic mix of Edwardian and ancient, with Roman tables and lots of books. Just a little jumbled. A huge wardrobe dominated one corner, with a little mirrored alcove, a dining corner like a breakfast nook, and many potted plants. A mural of a waterfall in a forest made the illusion that the huge four poster bed against the wall was a still pool. The only water in the forest....  
  
“What is this place?” the Doctor asked, sounding much more aggravated than he had expected.   
  
“My room,” River said easily.  
  
“Since when?”   
  
“Since always.”   
  
“This room has never been here before.”   
  
“It’s always been here, Sweetie. From the beginning. Ever since the Tardis entered this desktop. You just haven’t looked.”   
  
“Well, this is the first time I’ve set foot in it,” the Doctor said, “I can vouch for that.”  
  
“Have some champagne,” River said quietly, and she held a glass out to him. “You really can change your mind,” she added. “I won’t be offended. I know you.”   
  
The Doctor realized he was sounding very irate. He sighed and sank into one of her Edwardian chairs. River pressed the champagne flute into his hand and sat down across from him. The Doctor sipped it, then upended it, swallowing the contents in a few seconds. The bubbles burned at his throat. He set the glass down and sank his head into his hands, his elbows on his knees. He felt lonely and confused and overwhelmed and he didn’t know what he wanted.  
  
A few seconds later, River’s fingers laced through his hair, caressing his scalp, easing his tensions. “That feels way too good,” he mumbled.   
  
“I know,” River said softly.   
  
He looked up. “River, I don’t know how much—”  
  
“Shh,” she cut him off. “I know.” She got off her knees and eased herself into his lap, still massaging his scalp. “I know you’re not sure about this,” she breathed into his ear. The heat of her breath made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. “But I also know that you want this. You want this more than even you can imagine at this moment. And when it’s all over, you’ll understand that.” She kissed him softly, again and again, her lips traveling over his skin like a hot brand.  
  
Images of River flashed through his memory. River the last time he’d seen her, in the hospital, pale and tired and new, just gone through her own regeneration, having breathed the life back into him. Still new, still mad, how easily he had let her kiss him — kill him. River as Mels, madness in her eyes and a gun in her hand, about to shoot the Tardis. That little girl in the space suit, ‘Help me! Please, help me!’ The he’s-hot-when-he’s-clever face. Cleopatra. You and me and handcuffs. I’m crying for you, you skinny ape! I’ll bet I like you. Not one line. Don’t you dare. Shh...! Spoilers!  
  
He was kissing her. He hadn’t even decided to. He was kissing her hungrily, carnivorously, as if he could swallow her whole.  
  
“Shhh!” she said suddenly, and pulled away. “Come on.”  
  
She had hold of his hand, but she did not pull him as she moved backward toward the bed. Rather he kept his fingertips in contact with hers, just barely intertwined. There was no longer any question of him changing his mind.   



	2. River

  
  
River perched on the edge of the bed and drew him along beside her. This was different than usual. Mostly the Doctor did not think sexually. Time Lords weren’t geared for sex often, and it was usually something of a blind spot. When he did make love it was because all that indifference had faded over time — months or years — and desire had broken through. The sexual tension inside him had grown and grown and burst like a dam, sometimes without his realizing it was coming, and he caught up his chosen partner and whirled them up in the deluge. Often enough some — human — woman had been the instigator, pointing out that he was primed and ready for them, but that never lasted for more than a few moments. Soon enough, he was always taking charge.   
  
This time there was something measured and deliberate about it, as if he knew how the scene played out and there was no need to vary the script. There was no deluge to be swept up in. Just... a calm river. It was River, he realized. She already knew him. She was anticipating all the things he usually had to explain to his lovers — how long he’d last, what he’d want at the first. And River seemed gentler than she usually was. Somehow, he hadn’t expected that, either. River, gentle.  
  
River left her hand on his jaw and pulled him gently to her, letting their lips caress a few seconds before kissing him in earnest. She tasted like champagne and heat.   
  
She let him unpin one sleeve of her roman gown, and then wrapped her arm around his shoulders and pushed him softly back onto the bed. He expected her to lie down beside him, but instead she straddled him, pinning him down with her body — but all with the utmost gentleness. It was as if she were training a wild animal.   
  
He realized that was exactly what she was doing. He was a little frightened of what this night would mean, and she sensed that — or knew it outright. But oh, it felt good to have her weight above him, feel the heat of her body through his suit. “River, how much do you know?”  
  
River smiled down at him. “More than enough,” she said seductively, and she kissed him. “Oh, you’re all locked off,” she said quietly. “That’s so sweet.” He didn’t know what she meant, and he supposed it didn’t matter. She straightened one leg which effectively lowered her body gently atop of his. Neither of them could miss his erection. “Oh, you’re ready for me now. That was easy.”   
  
“You have no idea,” the Doctor said, “the things you do to me.”  
  
River grinned broadly. “Actually, I know better than you do. But you’ll find out soon enough.” Her deft fingers loosed his bow tie and she wrapped it around her hand as she pulled it from him. One side of her dress was loose, and one breast was dangling tantalizingly, the nipple only barely covered. The Doctor’s eye caught hold of it as she unbuttoned his shirt and pulled it out of his trousers. “Sit up,” she whispered, and he did so. This allowed her to pull his shirt and jacket off, and the Doctor used the opportunity to touch her skin, caress the soft flesh of her breast. The nipple finally slipped from the folds of the dress, coquettishly winking at him.   
  
River unbuttoned his trousers and then traveled down his legs until she got to his feet. She took off each of his shoes and then told him to stand up. As he stood she pulled his trousers down until his cock was right at her eye level. She opened her mouth and licked it, gently.   
  
“No!” the Doctor gasped, pulling away, protecting himself with his hand. “I-I need... I need...!”   
  
River looked up at him. “To trust me,” she said quietly.  
  
He blinked down at her.   
  
“I know what you need,” River said. “I know you’re not human, and I know you’re backwards. You start strong. My last is your first.” She wiggled her eyebrows suggestively, and her tongue touched her lip. She stood up and put her hands on his shoulders. “But I learned some tricks along the way,” she said, “and I can draw this first out... if you’ll let me.”   
  
The Doctor blinked at her stupidly. It had never occurred to him to try. He knew humans were backwards, and built to their climaxes, and he started with his and tapered down until — at least with humans — he was satisfied enough to let it end. That usually took about five hours. That was fast for a Time Lord, but humans made him satisfied in a way his own people never had, so he put up with their frailties and their weaknesses and finished early. It had never occurred to him to draw out his beginning, and make the event... well. More human.   
  
“Do you trust me?”   
  
“Melody Pond,” the Doctor murmured. “River.” He stared at her for a long moment, perfectly still. Finally his very passivity answered for him. River stepped toward him until her dress gently — oh, so gently — brushed at his cock. He drew in a deep breath, wanting to let it come, but it wasn’t enough. Her fingers traveled down his chest, soft and sharp, her nails like the mouths of tiny insects, biting at him. Gooseflesh ran over his skin, and River kissed him, very gently. Again she lay him back on the bed, letting her lips travel down his chest, pause at his nipples to touch them with her tongue, until she found the nest of hair by his cock. She touched the hair, smoothing it with her fingers, and his cock jumped. As it moved, one of her nails scratched it lightly, and made the Doctor whimper.   
  
River ignored the hungry organ and ran her nails tenderly down his thighs, caressing the backs of his knees, trailing back up to his hips. His cock was leaping for her, now. This was madness! River curled up beside him on the bed and offered him the other pin of her dress. His hand was trembling as he unpinned it. Her torso revealed, she looked like a statue of a Greek goddess, her breasts pert, the nipples deep pink. He liked that she wasn’t too young. He preferred to travel with young people, as they kept him young, but as far as partners went, he usually preferred them older — less childlike.   
  
River was stunning. Her hips were wide and mature, and he wanted to rip the skirt of her dress off and plunge into her. But her movements were slow and deliberate... and he didn’t want to break this spell she had cast.  
  
She slid off the bed and stretched, her breasts standing pert as her arms strained. She moaned with the movement, a more erotic sound he had never heard. He flinched. With a seductive smile, River lifted one leg onto the bed and untied her sandal. It went halfway up her leg, and took some time. Her leg was shapely and muscular. He reached out and caressed it, his own movements teasing at his straining cock. As his hand slid up her thigh, she grabbed it and shook her head. “No, no,” she said softly, and brought up her other leg. This time she let him undo the laces that ran up her calf. When they were halfway unlaced, she took the ends of them and lightly ran them over his cock. He had to stop moving then, or he was going to scream.   
  
River slid her foot out of the shoe and then turned. She untied the sash on her dress and very, very slowly let the skirt puddle around her feet. He was presented with a perfect, art portrait like image of her behind, round and smooth like a peach, with two perfect dimples on her hips, just the right size for his thumbs. It was all he could do not to grab her and bend her over the bed. Images of seizing her from behind flashed through his mind’s eye. Oh, please, how long was she planning to draw this out?  
  
She turned then, revealing a perfect triangle of dark gold hair nestled between her legs. His eyes were riveted on it. She came back up to him and pushed him down. He almost resisted, but she was strong and so smoothly slow about it, he just let her. Once he was on his back she let her hand trace down his torso, tickling his flesh, trailing over his hips until she herself was perched by his cock, staring down at him.   
  
He never made himself wait this long. It was excruciating.   
  
Then she made even worse. She bent down as if to swallow him, but all she did was breathe — just breathe, as if she was whispering to it, her hot breath trailing over his flesh like moist little fingers. Then he realized she was whispering — Hello, sweetie. Nice to meet you. So silently there was no sound. Her lip barely touched the tip, and he whimpered.   
  
River chuckled. Then, she pursed her lips and blew on his cock, hard and cold, like an icy finger and he cringed, his hands grasping the covers in a tight grip. “River! Now, please!” he hissed.   
  
River sat back up and looked at him. “I’ll have mercy,” she said with a smile. Then she sat up and straddled him, and he waited for the moment of penetration...! But she hovered over him. His cock was drawn up to her, her heat drawing him like a magnet, but she was too far away. “But only if you listen to me.”   
  
He frowned at her. She looked sorry for him. “Oh, what?” he breathed. What in the universe could she possibly have to talk about _now!?_  
  
“There’s something you, my glorious Time Lord, are not doing right now because you’ve trained yourself not to.” She looked coy. “I understand why,” she said softly. “All those human women you’ve loved and bedded, all those centuries of training yourself to make love like a human man. But you’re not human. I didn’t realize I’d have to teach you this,” she whispered, and she kissed his cheek, then his lips, then his other cheek. “But you’re still all closed off, so it looks like I do.” She ran her nose along his jawline. His body was screaming for her, and he could barely contain himself.   
  
“What are you talking about?”   
  
She kissed his temple, which made the heat above his cock shift, and he writhed. He still couldn’t reach her. He wanted to sob, it felt so good, and he wanted so much more. “You want me?” she whispered.   
  
“Yes!”   
  
“Then take me properly,” she said. She pulled away and stared down at him. “I’m the child of the Tardis,” she told him candidly. “You can’t break me. You can’t overwhelm me. You can’t short out my neural net. You’ve taught yourself to close your mind off to your lovers because human women can’t take it. But my love... I can.”   
  
He blinked at her in frank disbelief. She grinned down at him. “My mind isn’t that of a Time Lord. I don’t know every language in the universe, and I can’t enter someone’s mind, I can’t follow psychic traces any more than the average human, I have no time-sensitivity and my skills at hypnosis require drug-therapy. But when it comes to this... you can’t break me.” She kissed him briefly. “I’m going to let you, now,” she warned him. “And I want you... to believe me. Don’t hold yourself back. You can’t hurt me.”   
  
She shifted, and the Doctor grabbed her hips, holding her away. He had to stop her. She stared at him, her eyes calm and innocent, her face open and kind. A part of him was screaming at him not to listen. She was human, he was a Time Lord. She couldn’t possibly know what she was asking. He’d kill her. But...  
  
She had to know better than he did. He searched her face, looking for any trace of fear, any hint of disingenuousness. All he saw was trust and adoration and longing. There was an undercurrent of sadness as well, but it wasn’t fear. Slowly, terrified for her as well as for himself, he let his eyes close, and allowed his grip on her hips to loosen.  
  
The heat which had been hovering above him suddenly engulfed him like a wave. Usually he requested his human lovers to remain still while his initial reaction surged through him, but River did not do this. Instead she thrust herself over him, pulling more out of his beginning than he had experienced in generations. The last time he’d made love with a Time Lord had been in his fourth regeneration, and that was of course with a Time Lord — they didn’t hunger like humans did. Their bodies just weren’t as excited by the prospect of sex. River’s was human, and she reacted like a human. And the eagerness of her movements along with her assurance that he could not break her — oh, please, let that be true! — because he couldn’t keep himself closed, not with her thrusting like that, and his mind blocks cracked, and he did not try to repair them, and the psychic link he had not used fully in centuries opened up, and the sensation she was invoking in him was amplified, triplified, even, as it rocked through her too, and then back to him, and he groaned with ecstacy, almost screaming, clutching at her waist with a vice grip.   
  
When the initial eruption had faded he lay on his back on River’s bed as she gently moved on top of him — and she was still there. Still hooked into his mind like two floating soap bubbles, sharing one side. She had not been overwhelmed. Her mind was whole and strong beside his. She was still wholly and completely River, and she adored him, and she trusted him, and she was amused by him and she needed him more than she would ever admit in words, and she was so, so glad to be open and linked with him. Her head was on his chest, nuzzling him. He took hold of her chin and lifted her face to his.   
  
_Yes,_ she told him silently. _I meant that._  
  
He wanted to cry.   
  
_It’s only just beginning_ , she told him with a smile, and she ground herself over him.   
  
“Mm,” the Doctor said. 


	3. Lovers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter gets a little sappy. I don't care. As I said, I'm playing.

  
River was still human. He liked that. She still built to a climax like a human and desired like a human and hungered for more like a human. He could still ride her, cresting on her waves like a ship on the sea, as the very animal passion of her humanity colored her sexuality. But now he was open, melded into her mind like another part of her, and wasn’t just _as if_ he shared her hunger, or _as if_ he came with her, but he really felt the same things she did, the same build, the same release.   
  
All of his life he had generally preferred to make love with humans, and just held the psychic desires of his Time Lord mind at bay. His body was active, and much more important to him, personally. Other Time Lords had found him quite kinky, really. But the idea of having both, of indulging in the pleasures of the flesh while the mating of the mind absorbed both of them was something he had dreamed about, but never managed to fully achieve. Some human lovers — Sarah Jane had been one of them — had been able to take small psychic influences, and he had sipped of them like cordial. But River... he was drunk on River from that first moment on.   
  
River was very gentle, savoring every moment, softly drawing him when he wasn’t sure about something.   
  
He got the impression that it was different than it usually was. It seemed as if when she had made love with him in her past it had been more passionate, raunchier, and there was laughter and games of naked hide and seek and drawn out desire in the corridors. There were flavored lipsticks of more than one variety and massage oils that did more than soften your skin and handcuffs and ties and watch chains and he didn’t even want to think about what all. But she did none of that this time. No pleasure games. No tortuous teasing. Part of it was because it was all new to him, and she was letting him explore her. But there was something, some reason, why she was simply savoring him now. Something wholly and completely for herself. And she did not answer when he mentally opened the question why.   
  
He didn’t press her.   
  
He kept trying to judge when she was exhausted and he needed to stop. Human women varied in their endurance, and he had gotten fairly good over the years of guessing when they were about to reach their limits. But River... kept being fine. He’d push her again, draw out another gentle orgasm, mentally check her endurance... and she kept being just fine.   
  
“Are you tired?” he whispered at one point. English was still a more direct method of communication — the mind link tended to be overloaded by emotion and sub-thoughts.   
  
River smiled up at him. “I’m strong,” she said quietly, and kissed him tenderly, lifting her hips to grip him tightly. “Stronger than you’re used to,” she added in his ear. She pushed him over and slammed down on top of him, causing both of them to gasp with the sensation.   
  
She did have moments when she needed to rest — he made sure she drank enough water — but when she did she stroked him tenderly with her hand, or turned around and gently kissed his cock, letting her tongue travel languidly up and down the shaft. She never made him wait to continue, keeping the entire experience unbroken and uninterrupted. At one point she turned around and invited him into her ass. At another she bent herself in half in a way he hadn’t thought possible. But always she kept him stimulated.   
  
He lost track of the time. He was supposed to — that was what Time Lords usually did. It was part of the charm. He’d never been able to with humans. Always their brief lives had counted down the hours before they were exhausted, no matter how seductive and eager their hot, hungry bodies were. But he was in River’s mind, and she didn’t think about the time, and whenever they got bored — which happened often enough with two brilliant people who were only exercising their bodies and their pleasure centers — they had each other’s minds to amuse them. It was like having sex along with lively conversation, without having to be distracted by either. Very Time Lord, really, but much more physically engaging.   
  
Then, in the most ordinary of positions, as River lay on her back open, and he pushed himself into her gently, he became aware of a sensation he had not felt in centuries. It trickled in gently at first, and then became quite obvious. He stopped thrusting. He opened his eyes in wonder and stared at River.   
  
“What?”  
  
“I think I’m done,” he said disbelievingly.   
  
River smirked.  
  
“No, I mean... I... I’m finished. There’s nothing else.”  
  
That had never happened before. There was no human woman who could endure as long as a Time Lord needed to actually finish. Now, on the whole, finishing was unnecessary. The exciting bit for a Time Lord happened at once, and everything else was just the afterthought. If it was cut short it was dissatisfying, but it wasn’t as if it needed to go on as long as he could go.   
  
But somewhere along the lines, having lost track of time as River kept being fine, not tired, it’s fine, honey... he had reached the end.   
  
“Oh, isn’t there,” River said with a sly smile he couldn’t understand.   
  
“I don’t get it,” he admitted.   
  
“Penny’s in the air,” she said with a grin, and she sat up, pushed him over, and ground herself atop of him, fiercely, holding him down as if he’d try to escape.   
  
And then there was something new. Something neither human nor Time Lord as River thrust herself wildly over him, drawing sensations out of her body and, amazingly, out of his, and it hurt, it hurt beautifully, and he started to scream as River brought herself to a climax that shook through his exhausted system and dragged another burst out of him — out of _him_ , which shouldn’t have been possible. Something exquisitely painful and overwhelming and, dear lord it felt _human_ , coming at the end like this. He was roaring now with the sensation of it, and he hated it, and it felt _good!_ Far, far too good for it to be real, almost too good to survive it. River moaned, but there was a chuckle in it, as she knew exactly what she was doing to him — and she knew he hadn’t expected it.   
  
His roaring melted, leaving his throat aching and his head pounding, and he whimpered again and again as the pain still trailed through him.   
  
She let it go, allowing herself to fall beside him sweating and panting. “The penny,” she said with a tired laugh, “drops.”   
  
The Doctor lay and shuddered, gasping, his body suffering aftershocks. That final climax had torn his mind from River’s, but that was fine. He wasn’t sure his mind was together enough to be linked with anyone just then. He was stunned. What in the name of all creation _was_ that? Was that a Time Lord secondary climax that no Time Lord had ever experienced because no Time Lord had ever tried? What had River dragged from his physiology with her human appetites? If the archives at Gallifrey still existed he would have looked it up — undoubtedly some Gallifreyin in history must have discovered that before. But took River to find it for him. He gasped and shook like a landed fish.   
  
The Doctor gazed up at her. She moved to roll over and give him space, but he grabbed her, pulling her close, pulling her as if he could drag her inside him. He couldn’t let her go.   
  
River stroked his hair, kissing his cheek in understanding. “Honey, are you okay?” she whispered after a moment.   
  
He pulled away, and she brushed the tears from his cheeks. “You have stayed me in a happy hour,” he breathed, his own words inadequate, and only Shakespeare’s worthy of the moment.   
  
River chuckled again and kissed him lightly. “Sleep,” she told him. “You need it.”   
  
He laughed in a happy sob and shuddered again. But he wouldn’t let her go. She was his.   
  
He was hers.   
  



	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (The Doctor’s sleep cycle is based on Tom Baker’s theory of Gallifreyan physiology.)

  
They did sleep. Usually, the Doctor didn’t need to. When he was young, a few seconds would suffice. As he got older he let the times between his sleep stretch until he was sleeping for a few hours, every month or so. Lately, he had hardly been sleeping at all. The last time he distinctly remembered sleeping was last Christmas, during Amy and Rory’s honeymoon, after he’d done some Dickensian time-stretching which had made him a little ill. Sleeping was hard, and dreaming was horrible.   
  
But River made it easy.   
  
When he opened his eyes, she was already awake. She was staring at him, gently fondling a strand of his hair. He stared at her for a long moment before he finally asked. “Why are you sad?”  
  
River’s lips pursed, more of an it's-all-right than an actual smile, and she shook her head. The Doctor sat up a little and gathered her into his arms. She allowed him to pull her close and she sighed. “I love you, too,” she murmured.   
  
The Doctor shook his head. “I didn’t know about all that,” he said.   
  
“I know.”   
  
“Was that a weapon of the Silence? A sexual weapon?” he asked. The idea of how they would have trained her for it was abominable, and if that was the case, it was unconscionable that he enjoyed it.   
  
River gazed up at him. “What makes you think that?”   
  
“Because by the time you were finished last night, I wouldn’t have minded if you’d killed me.”   
  
River laughed.   
  
“I’m serious. I almost wouldn’t mind you killing me now.”  
  
“No. The Silence didn’t do train me to do that,” she said. “But I think... somebody may well have arranged for it.”   
  
He raised an eyebrow, and River smiled at him. She looked around her, gesturing at the air about them, the walls, the furnishings.   
  
The Doctor’s face relaxed in shock, and River snuggled against him. “The more time has gone on, the more I think the Tardis built me for you. She won’t tell me, of course,” she said. “I think she thinks I’d be angry. There’s a time I would have been, so she’s not wrong. I don’t care anymore, but she still won’t tell me. You should ask her, when you get the chance. She’s more fond of you than me, anyway. Even if she listens to me more.” She sat up and kissed him briefly. “I think I need a shower. Back in a tick.” She stood up and wrapped herself in a silk kimono before she headed to another door, clearly her private bath.   
  
The Doctor lay in River Song’s bed and stared up at the Tardis’ ceiling. _Is she right?_ he asked silently. “You wouldn’t have, not really,” he mumbled. He looked around him. “Would you?”   
  
The Tardis was something quiet and shy in his mind right then. “The Doctor and the Tardis,” River had said with the same reverence when he had first met her, as if they were equated the same. All those few precious minutes with the woman’s form of Idris, as the Tardis spoke to him. _I just wanted to say... Hello!_  
  
Hello, Sweetie.   
  
The only water in the forest is the River.   
  
“You did, didn’t you,” he whispered, and the Tardis’ lights dimmed a little. All the wild coincidences that had to fall into place for River’s existence — meeting Amy, the crack in her wall, Rory the Roman, the Silence, even the weird timey-wimeyness of his encounters with River. It all fell into place, and it made perfect sense, if it had all been calculated by a being with transcendent knowledge of time and space.   
  
He was so wildly overcome with emotion — gratitude and devotion and unworthiness, among others — he had to distract himself from it somehow. “You set this all up, got yourself blown up, nearly got everyone killed, just to get me a decent partner?” he asked, incredulous.   
  
He got an impression, almost a question, though it was wordless. Worth it?   
  
He drew in a deep breath. Everything still tingled from last night and his mind was clearer than it had been in centuries and he felt... oh, he felt good. “Yes,” he admitted guiltily. The Tardis hummed with satisfaction, and he sighed. “Thank you,” he added.   
  
He was welcome. He always had been.   
  
  



	5. Time and Space

  
He went to join River in the shower, but she was already finished. She hadn’t bothered washing her hair. She handed the bathroom over to him, and he took advantage of it. The hot water felt deliciously sensual on his sated body.   
  
River was gone when he came out. He found her in the console room, working out something on his computers. Her diary was open on the console. She was updating it, making notes on some pages and checking dates on others against the Tardis data banks.  
  
Usually he felt stand-offish after sex. He didn’t like starting things that wouldn’t be finished. But he was satisfied, for once in his life — possibly the first time in his life — fully and completely satisfied. Touching her did not seem like a promise unfulfilled. It was just... the way it should be. The Doctor came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her. She closed her eyes and let herself lean against him. Her long neck lay exposed, just ready for his lips. “How are you feeling, love?” he whispered in her ear.   
  
“Mm,” River said as he kissed her throat. “I feel wonderful.”   
  
She did not sound right. Gone was the sardonic mocking quality to her voice. Gone was the arrogance. Gone was her patronization. There was only tenderness and love. He knew something was wrong. “Please tell me why you’re sad,” he whispered.   
  
She shook her head again, and he turned her around to face him, caressing her cheek with his lips. She trembled. He stared at her. “River,” he said. He did not ask again.   
  
River’s head bowed and she rested her forehead on his chest. “This was your first time,” she said quietly. She gazed up at him. “It was beautiful. More beautiful than I could have imagined. It was perfect.”   
  
“It was,” he whispered.   
  
River took a deep breath — a deep breath that trembled somewhere deep inside her. “And I think it may well have been my last time,” she said.   
  
The Doctor’s hearts stuttered. He’d forgotten — how could he have forgotten? — River’s end. Every time he saw her it was a grain of sand in the hourglass, trickling inexorably down to the ultimate Silence in the Library. His breath was shaky as he admitted, “I can’t say... since it’s early for me, I can’t have lived it yet, either.”   
  
“I know,” River said evenly. She seemed very calm about it. Much calmer than he would have been. “But you have a lot to look forward to, either way,” she said brightly, banishing her fears.   
  
He admired her for that. It was something he would have done. He scooped her up and set her on the console, covering her face with kisses until she squirmed like a child. “That tickles!” He kissed her fiercely, his tongue snaking between her teeth, trying swallow her inside. He let it end sweetly and stood back. River smoothed her hair and smiled up at him. “Where to now?” she asked. “Any plans, or should I go back to prison?”   
  
“Up to you,” he said brightly, and considered her. Prison. He still had no idea if she was the one who killed him or not. Utah. It wasn’t just River’s death that was slowly counting down. It was his own.   
  
He didn’t care. After last night, she could do what she liked with him — kill him, love him, order him about. The Tardis had made her for him. He would do anything for her. “We can do anything you’d like.”   
  
“Well, I do have just one question I’d like you to answer,” River told him.   
  
“Yes?”   
  
“And I need you to be honest.”   
  
“Okay.”   
  
“Last night,” she added.   
  
“Yeess?” he said warily.   
  
“Do you think any of that could have happened if my parents had been waiting down the corridor for the next scream?”   
  
The Doctor blushed and cringed at the very thought.   
  
“Now. Aren’t you glad you sent them home? Give us a little... space?”  
  
The Doctor laughed until he almost felt sick.  
  
“Feel better now, darling?”  
  
The Doctor caught her up and kissed her soundly. “Yes,” he said honestly. “Yes. I feel... amazing, Doctor Song.”   
  



End file.
